The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-12-31

learned to look up to her as one whose superior judgment could he relied upon, for it had led him safely through all the temptations of youth. Never before had her eounsels been sighted, and even now his reason and judgment told him she was right. But what youth of two-and-twenty was ever ready to be guided by them when there was pretty face in the ques- tion? But Adah's sorrow touched him, and he could not answer lightly when it would give her pain.
 "I am sorry, very sorry, for the pain my conduct gives you, dear cousin Adah," and his arm was around her, and his kisses pressed upon her brow with the tenderness habitual in his manner toward her, "but I cannot help thinking you make too serious matter of it altogether, for I prefer May Westbrook, and shall be far bet ter satisfied with her as my wife"
 "But how long will you prefer her, Maurice? Where will your fancied love be when her beauty has faded and her artless manners grown insipid? Even if these could always last, the day will come when you will feel the need of strong, tender love and an earnest sympathy with your deeper feelings, and no wax doll or fancy par Tor ornament will satisfy you then. God help you, if that day comes when too late for you to remedy the evil 1! You will learn then the value of the love you are now sighting, and bit ter awakening it will be-"
 "But if all this were true, it is too late to help it, for all is over with Marion, and am as good as engaged to May"
 "No, it is not too late; you can help it even now, if you will; but see how it is-you do not wish to--you prefer to follow the dictates of your fancy. May God help you, Maurice ]! You are making or marring your hap piness for life by the step you are ! about to take remember, whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap and very bitter will be the fruit of the folly you are now sowing"
 "To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for riches, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part"
 Solemnly and sweetly the words of the marriage service which made Ma rion Herbert wife, sounded through that crowded drawing room. Had it been the burial service instead ''ashes to ashes, dust to dust,"-it could not have fallen more heavily on the heart of one of the gay party there assembled. Little they thought, as they looked on Maurice Warland's smiling face, that heart wrung by keenest torture lay beneath it. But there was one who, watching that face whose every change she knew so well, knew it all, and whose heart acked with bitter pain for the presence of the sorrow which she had long known must come to him. And it occasioned no surprise to her when the ceremony was ended and soft strains of music called the dancers to their favorite amusement, that he sought out her quiet corner.
 "I am tired of this gaiety, Cousin Adah. VIII you come with fife where l it is quiet?"
 Very willingly she consented, and out of the brilliantly lighted room he led her, down the long hall to small room at it's extremity. Very familiar was that cosy room to him, for it was Marion's own little parlor where three years before he breathed VOWS, the breaking of which had brought him all this bitter sorrow.
 In Marion's own easy chair he seated Adah, and throwing himself on the ottoman at her feet, he laid his head in her lap, just as he had done in his boyhood's days, when he came to her for sympathy in some youthful trouble.
 "Let me take my old place, as in the happy days that have passed I want to be boy again for tonight. The world would wonder to see the proud Maurice Warland thus"-and his lip curled scornfully "but care not all the pride and strength of my man. hood have Jeff me. That ceremony, I believe, drove the last spark from my heart. The bitter awakening, of which you warned me years ago, Adah, has come. l am reaping the fruits of my sin and folly. Had but followed your counsel all this might have been spared me; but 1t is now too late, too late! Oh, Adahl" He burst forth, passionately, springing to his feet and commencing to pace back ward and forward across the apart ment, "you cannot imagine how I loathe and hate myself for my blind, sinful follyl To stand there and see her given to another-even though could not but acknowledge he was